73RD BIRTHDAY INTERVIEW
“Talent is only secondary to click in films”
Jyothi Venkatesh
Mithun Chakraborty is celebrated his 73rd birthday on 16th June . To mark his birthday, we at Cinema TV Today wish him a happy birthday and reproduce this rare interview of JYOTHI VENKATESH with the living legend MITHUN CHAKRABORTY, who he has known right from the time he had made his debut in Bollywood with Mrinal Sen’s Mrigaya, way back in 1976.
With his first film Mrigaya, Mithun Chakraborty has bagged the Best Actor award of the Government of West Bengal. It was quite an achievement considering the fact that Mithun, also known as Rana Rez, a product of the FTI, was only 26 years old and a novice. “I passed out from the Institute in the year 1974 . My batch-mates were Rama Vij , Ranjeeta, Vijayendra Ghatge and Mala Jaggi. Among them Vijayendra made his bow with Chit Chor , Ranjeeta with Laila Majnu , Rama Vij with Aarambh and Mala Jaggi is all set to prove her worth with Tapan Sinha’s Puraskar”, says Mithun .
According to Mithun, talent is only secondary to click in films. “Luck is primary. Take for instance the case of Amitabh Bachchan. Even though he had clicked in Anand, five following films of his turned turtle at the box office. Yet the guy did not lose hope. Once, Amitabh was even thrown out of a film after six reels were canned and replaced by another actor. Look at him today. Even if you have talent in abundance, it remains of no use, unless it is supplemented by luck. For all my talent, if Mrinal Sen hadn’t offered me the Mrigaya role, I’d have been completely wiped away by the struggles I had to face as a new comer. Believe it or not, after I passed, I literally struggled day and night for two years without a single concrete offer.”
It was during this period of struggle that Mithun signed even insipid, extra roles like in Do Anjaane,Paapi Devta and Mukti. It was at the instance of Mrinal Sen that he retained his original name Mithun Chakraborty for the screen. He had mentally prepared himself to adopt the name of Rana Rez. He was popular with the girls at the Institute as Rana and not as Mithun. While at the Institute, he acted in two diploma films – Anahut and Love Is .
At one time, when he was at the peak of his career, Mithun had plum assignments on hand. The list included the Basu Chatterji-directed Prem Vivah and Wohi Baat and five films with Sarika- Anand Mai, Cactus, Gehra Daag, Punar Milan and Tere Pyar Mein. Mithun denies rumors that he was responsible for the Sachin – Sarika split. ”For heaven’s sake, please forget the thought of adding fuel to fire. I met Sarika only after the Sachin-Sarika rift, with which I had nothing to do .If I had as many as five films with Sarika, it didn’t mean that we were having an affair. We were good friends and producers cast us together because they felt that our team will click. I had films with Bindiya, Bhawna Bhatt and Shabana Azmi too.”
Mithun says that he will not waste his time by protesting against the established norms of the film industry. “I have not come here to change the course of the film industry. Though I’d love to portray negative roles and prove my worth, I’m scared to accept such roles because the masses tend to type you to a point of No Return and saddle you with a certain image. The star-system can vanish only if all the stars agree to enact different roles, like in Hollywood.”
According to Mithun, Mrinalda is thoroughly prepared when he comes to the sets. Unlike others, he does not hold a script in one hand and work monotonously with it. He lights a cigarette and works in a relaxed manner, giving room for improvisation by the artistes. “I was confident about the success of Mrigaya at least in Calcutta because it has politically conscious people and the film had political undertones. I had put in a lot of effort to lend credibility to my role. I lived with the adivasis of Taldanga village where the film was shot partly, for more than a month and studied their mannerisms.”
“Coming into films was the biggest gamble I ever ventured into. No one from my family is in films. My father is still working as a supervisor at a telephone exchange in Calcutta. (Note: Mithun’s dad died last month after the lockdown started) I am the eldest and the only son of my parents. I have three sisters. I couldn’t pursue my studies after B. Sc Part 1 because of financial difficulties.”